No compelling interest in battling corruption?

The U.S. Supreme Court in its Citizens United ruling last year demonstrated a callous disregard for the corrupting role of big money in political campaigns. Its ruling in an Arizona case today on public financing just validates this disregard. In it, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in the 5-4 ruling, argues, as I read it, that there is not enough compelling public interest in combating this type of corruption. Arizona did this with a trigger that matches the money spent by privately financed candidates with public financing for candidates who opt for that route. Roberts argues that this inhibits the freedom to speak for those private candidates.

No, wrong again. What it does is increase speech. And what is accomplished with this new ruling is yet another gate opened for one-sided speech — that of the privately funded candidate, backed by special interests he or she will be beholden to. This isn’t free speech. It is speech to those who can afford it.

Justice Elena Kagan got it right. “The First Amendment’s core purpose is to foster a healthy, vibrant political system full of robust discussion and debate. Nothing in Arizona’s anti-corruption statute…violates this constitutional protection. To the contrary, the Act promotes the values underlying both the First Amendment and our entire Constitution by enhancing the ‘opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people.’”